Inspired by our interviews with Marika and because of our most recent adventure* we decided to boot our planned challenge and instead talk ADVENTURES!
Tell us all about your favorite adventure books or The Sisters would love to hear stories of your adventures... what kind of adventures? Look at that picture... ever walked a rope bridge, climbed a mountain, tell us the (short version) story!
*Check out the comments for the Sisters latest adventure!
Typed by The Mom, dictated by The Little Sister:
ReplyDelete"Magic Tree House, ALLLLLLLLLL the Narnia books, the Rose Wilder stories, I liked the second book of the Series of Unfortunate Events --beacuse it was so exciting and cool."
"I really like adventure stories, but not if they are tooooooo excting!"
There has been some crazy weather in Northern Michigan these past couple of days. On Tuesday The Sisters and The Mom celebrated The Dad's birthday with an overnight stay in Traverse City.
ReplyDeleteAfter dinner we decided to go to the top of the tallest downtown building to check out the windy views. We were in the elevator with Gramma, Grampa and Auntie Jennifer and three other people --it was really crowded. When all of the jolted to a stop, the lights flickered and where the elevator usually displays what floor you are on it just read "--" and we realized the elevator was stuck. The Big Sister "just stood there, I was so scared I couldn't cry, think or anything --could only stand there." The Little Sister felt the same way. The Mom had to sit on the floor and put her head between her knees. Thankfully there was a waiter delivering room service and he acted like it was normal, complaining that it was an old finicky elevator and that the last time, "I was stuck in here for an hour."
Well, thankfully the elevator wasn't being finicky, we were stuck because the power went out and within a few (very long) minutes the elevator jolted and simply lowered us to the basement... where we tromped by emergency light up to the restaurant where we met The Dad (who missed the adventure) and cried tears of relief and told our harrowing elevator story for the first time!
There are two things the jumped into my mind when I think of adventure stories:
ReplyDeleteWhen we were young my mom and dad (The Bean and The Poet) read aloud to us all the time. Some of my favorite times were when we were camping and dad would read to us as we cozied in our sleeping backs --the challenge was to find stories that we would listen to as we got older and they always did. One that remains with me is To Build a Fire by Jack London (click on the link to read it, it is not very long)for some reason after reading it I learned to pride myself in my talent for building a roaring "one match fire with wet wood!" You see, I would survive that adventure...
The other story is about a personal adventure --driving, as a passenger, on the coast road from the Barcelona Airport to Sitges. My brother was 23 I was 27 and he drove without a care in the world, I just watched him and breathed and breathed --and tried to enjoy the gorgeous Balearic Sea way way way way down there... I need to do a lot of work before I can drive down that road... maybe someday!
One of the best adventures I have been on involved a mission trip in Mexico. I lived in a tent on the desert and worked on a house building project. I was on the fence building crew and spent my days chopping down cholla (also known as jumping cholla - the spines jump into your skin!) with a machete. It was an amazing experience working to build new friendships and learn conversational Spanish while also doing the hardest physical work of my life. One day a huge storm rolled in. Big black clouds, the wind was enormous, the rains started quickly filling the dry riverbed instantaneously, and then softball sized hail came down shredding tents. We all took shelter in a small cinder block building and watched this unfold on the wide expanse of the desert.
ReplyDeleteThe best part about being in the desert away from all cities is the night sky. So black you could lose yourself in it and stars so bright it is hard to believe it is the same sky you have looked at before. I stared at it for hours lying in my sleeping bag on ground that held the warmth of the day. I still find myself longing for it when I stand in my driveway in town and try to make out the big dipper.
Every day in my life now is sort of an adventure, especially with Fyn. We try to have many fun times close to home, with people we know and love!
ReplyDeleteOur favorite adventure story is Huck Finn! Tommy read the whole thing to us right after Fyn was born.
My most recent adventure involved camping in Glacier National Park last summer. I have to admit it wasn't the most rugged adventure in history - we slept in an Airstream and cooked on a Coleman stove. The first day we hiked the length of the Lake McDonald - about 14 miles (so of course I got a blister). We also hiked to Hidden Lake at Logan's Pass. The most fun was when we went canoeing at Many Glacier. We spotted a black bear along the shore and then saw a group of hikers heading straight toward it. We got to yell "BEAR! BEAR!", at which point the hikers made a lot of noise with their bear bells and the bear ran off into the forest.
ReplyDeleteAs far as adventure books, I've mentioned the adventure series by Enid Blyton before. My sister and I just loved them and read them also many times.
We recently posted about Maria Doria Russel's visit to Traverse City --there The Bean and I purchased a few of her books, including The Sparrow. Thanks to The Sparrow my dreams have been pitted with narrow escapes and tormented by journeys on asteroids to far away planets and my sleep will continue to suffer until I finish this book, which could be tonight... Thanks to The Poet who read it in a big gulp too, last weekend!
ReplyDeleteDefinitely an adventure book!
I have another very very large (larger than my last)adventure!
ReplyDeleteI was running and banged my head on my Dad's truck, got a gash in my forehead and I had to the Emergency Room and get quite a few stitches in my forehead (my eyebrow.)Now I know if I ever have to go to the ER I can trust the doctors to do anything -it's not such a big deal, I feel much braver that I did before!!
thinking of Robert Frost...
ReplyDeleteOnce upon a time, on a rainy night many years ago, I was sitting in the barn-turned-lecture-hall at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in the mountains of Vermont, waiting for Robert Frost to come from his farm over the hill to talk with us. Standing near me, leaning against the wall, was a woman with a young child standing on a chair next to her so he could see. The child was well-behaved, but certainly not terribly interested in being there.
John Ciardi and Robert Frost came in together and Frost went to the lectern. The boy looked at him and then turned to his mother and with surprise and delight on his face and in his voice said, "There's Grandpa!"
At that, there were smiles all around and I smile again to myself when I remember.
My adventures include getting a behind the scenes tour of a natural history museum by the director. At the end of the tour I realized I hadn't actually seen the exhibits and wanted desperately to see the mammoth skeleton. By that time the museum had closed he forgot were the light switches were. So with light of my phone screen I saw a giant skeleton looming up at me from the darkness.
ReplyDeleteNighttime in a natural history museum is actually rather spooky!